


Home-Sick

by mossologist



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Pining, Gen, One-Shot, dark au, twist ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 02:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14534424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mossologist/pseuds/mossologist
Summary: D'avin's musings on Dutch as they go about their daily work and even help the poor along the way. Twist ending. A little bit macabre. Complete. Oblique references to sex, drugs and violence.





	Home-Sick

**Author's Note:**

> Soundtrack for this piece is 'Draw Your Swords', by Angus and Julia Stone, if you're into that kinda thing. Song lasts as long as it takes to read the fic!

* * *

 

_Quartidi 14th Floréal, Year of the Republic MLXII_

_~Westerley~_

It frustrates D’avin when Dutch stops to give money to panhandlers.

Doesn't hurt to spread a little joy, she always says, and he usually mumbles something about jakk addicts right back at her. He tries not to look too closely or get involved, in case he's compelled to do the same, perhaps even rouse his twisted, black heart. This time, however, something is different. Guy reminds him of someone from his past and it’s on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t quite remember who it might be, or how they met. Damn these memory mods.

He watches as Dutch whispers something comforting in old-word and presses notes into the beggar’s dirty hand.

She is generous, yes, but not in a naive way. It is a queen's way, burdened with care for her subjects. On anybody else, this mantle would seem vulgar and preposterous, but she truly is a queen. Not that he knew that when he slept with her. Sometimes he has to remind himself of her status, mind his grammar and coarse soldier language, but sometimes she is one of the lads too, joking bawdily and coming up with obscenely creative put-downs in posh, husky tones. Everything she does is so raw and real, from her fighting style, to laying her cheek on the back of the sofa in reverie. Cruel and compassionate in equal measure. He loves that. Loves her. Normally such a revelation would send him packing—it's just too big a deal to take on when your life is already so complicated, and this is how he knows that it's not just infatuation, not just a one-night stand on his whistle-stop tour of the galaxy. Accidentally having sex with the queen would normally be his cue to cut and run.

His dad's voice echoes in his head.

_What've you done now, you little piece of shit? What were you thinking? You want to get thrown in jail?_

As he watches Dutch, crouching in the street with her green eyes filled with compassion for the old miner with no legs, he realises that _her_ voice is now the loudest voice in his head.

“It's not much, but it should ease the pain for a while,” she says as she gives No-Legs something else from her pocket, medicine perhaps.

“Bless you,” says the man, “bless you for your kindness, young lady. A true believer in the Mother Tree. May her branches carry you.”

“And you.” Dutch stands and turns her head to look right at D’avin with a conciliatory smile. “Let's get out of here.”

He hands her the bag and she slings it onto her back as they navigate the independent quarter of Old-Town, lined with the entrances to indoor flea-markets and vendors of roasted rat and 'roach. He steals a glance at her sideways and she seems to be deep in thought, maybe about the beggar, maybe about him. He hopes she never finds out just how blackened and corrupted his heart has become, how eroded his conscience really is. All the people he's killed, far more than she supposes. Everything they've been through together is just the tip of the iceberg as far as his iniquity is concerned. He no longer deserves love, especially not her love. He knows she'll never feel the same way, but if he stays in the Quad, he gets to see her every day, gets to fantasise that a man like him can have a shot at a stable life. He no longer feels the urge to seek out home. She is his home.

“You're very quiet,” she says suddenly, “finally exhausted your stock of one-liners?”

“Just wondering what might have happened to him.”

“Oh,” she says, eyes glinting in the twilight of Leith's shadow. “I expect it was a mining accident.”

He shudders, imagining what scenario would have lead to this type of injury. “You'd think The Company would give them some kind of compensation.”

“They probably did. Only he drank it.”

“Probably.” He is silent again as they walk.

“Is something wrong? You've been weirdly introspective all day. If your head's not in the game—”

He wants to say it.

_I love you, Yalena. More than anyone I've ever known. I would follow you to the ends of the universe and all I can think about is making love to you just one more time, but I'm not worthy._

“Nah," he says, "just home-sick. Sometimes a steak wouldn't go amiss.” Yeah, that'll come out better in the wash. Better than love-sick, anyway.

“Wow. Okay. Um.” She inhales sharply. “Not many cows on Westerley, I’m afraid. Best I can do is June-bugs.”

They laugh together and then they fetch hokk and hot food in tiffin carriers, bringing it back to Lucy for John's approval. But all through dinner, their banter just washes over D’avin unheard. He feels one of his old headaches coming on, can’t get the beggar out of his mind.

***

They sign off on more warrants over the next three days, but all D’avin can think about is the poor legless miner.

What would he do if he saw him again, give him more jakk money? What in the worlds would he say? _Hey, I know what you’re going through, I had an army buddy who got blown up. My brother knows people who can help._

He watches Dutch dig around in her dress-up boxes as he does chin-ups in the mess. They are waiting for a green light, so he may as well use the nervous energy. She pulls out some bronze powder and brushes it all over the blemishes on her face, pulls on a long blue wig, preparing to go under cover. He’s never told her, but he can’t stand make-up, prefers flaws to perfection, prefers her when she’s all clean and  _au natrel,_ fresh from sleep. Or even better, fresh from his bed. She’s at her most beautiful when she’s completely undone. She'll never know about him wanking in the shower over the thought of it. Once or twice. Or you know, every night.

John walks past him with one eyebrow raised, obviously wondering why he’s stopped dead in the middle of exercising.

“What?” says D’avin, dropping to the deck. “Jog on.”

John resumes his path to the cock-pit. “Wheels up in five, Cyrano.”

“Ha-ha, bloody ha-ha.”

“What’s that?” Dutch flashes them both a smile, looking up from her box of wigs.

“Private joke,” says D’avin, “from when we were kids.”

She does that face again, framed by the blue hair, the one she does when they do brother stuff and she’s not included. They don't have time for this. They have a Black-Root commandant to bag. “Game faces, gentlemen, please. And game asses.”

***

He goes back to the independent quarter later, incognito and wearing a confiscated hoodie he found in Lucy's cargo-hold, but no matter what he does, he always looks like a soldier. Or a cop. Except that time he let Dutch dress him like a sado-masochistic doll, let her draw fake tats on him too, for all the good it did.

“You seen the guy with no legs?” he asks a woman tending a fire in a barrel. She has a scar over one eye.

“Old Lem?” she says.

“He was here three days ago.” D'avin looks around at the detritus, the remains of cardboard boxes which may have housed people like Lem, provided a more forgiving surface for him to drag himself over.

“Too late,” the woman says, nose twitching, “he dead.”

“What?” He is crestfallen, doesn’t know what to say. “How?”

“How d'ya think, idiot?” The woman sneers at him and turns away.

He watches her disappear into the night, arms helplessly by his sides, mind racing with images of a man dying alone and in pain. Was it the sample Dutch gave him, or something else, something more insidious, that ended his life? He knows what Dutch is capable of. She wouldn’t, would she?

* * *

 

_~Telen~_

“Well, that was interesting,” says Dr. Bliss, bringing up the correct file on her tablet. _Subject ‘DJ’, Serial Number 95693_. They only know them by their initials. It’s safer that way. "Are they all like this?"

“Complex, realistic dreams are one of the side effects of sensory deprivation.” Jaeger observes the subject’s unconscious form through the window in the flotation tank. Having to sit through hours and hours of nostalgic fantasy was par for the course when you were using human beings as conflict-computers. It could reveal critical information about their processing capabilities.

“Green goo and warrior princesses,” says Bliss, “seriously?”

"What do you expect when we bring up our young men on a steady diet of vintage romance and Captain Apex?"

“And did you notice he subconsciously found a way to work you and I into the narrative?” says Bliss.

“Such a shame,” says Jaeger, shaking her head, “gifted strategist, highest clip to kill ratio in the corps. I had high hopes for this one, maybe even use him for probability mapping, but if he still has a remnant of us in his memory, it shows the mods haven’t taken. Unplug him and send him back to his family with the army's condolences.”

Bliss checks the tablet. “He doesn’t have a family.”

“Very well,” says Jaeger, “hydrolyse and process for fertiliser, then.” She moves on to the next tank. The file says _‘FL’ 95694_. According to the notes, this one’s dreams involve the invention of outlandish weapons including directional darts, voltage sticks and even a stun boomerang. She sighs and prepares to settle in for a long night.

"Coffee?" says Bliss.

"Thanks."

Bliss stalks down the aisle in perilous heels. The lights flicker on and off again as she passes, and hundreds more tanks containing injured soldiers stretch out into the darkness of the lab.


End file.
